


Back Home to the West Coast

by orphan_account



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: Cousin Incest, F/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-03
Updated: 2009-09-03
Packaged: 2019-08-27 06:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16697302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When George Michael tells her that they're probably going to be staying in California for the rest of the summer while his dad deals with the technicalities of Gangee's parole and Uncle Buster's hand transplant, Maeby refuses to celebrate.





	Back Home to the West Coast

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Back Home to the West Coast](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/434569) by herosquad. 



It's spring in Hanover when George Michael gets the friend request.

> Mae Fünke (Tantamount) - 1 mutual friend  
> ACCEPT · DENY

All of a sudden, his face flushes and he looks around his room quickly before pressing 'Accept.' Then he clicks on his own profile and scrolls down quickly, giving his own information a once-over.

> George Michael Bluth
> 
> Networks:  
>     Dartmouth '10  
>     Boston, MA
> 
> Sex:  
>     Male
> 
> Birthday:  
>     March 2, 1990
> 
> Hometown:  
>     Newport Beach, CA
> 
> Relationship Status:  
>     In a Relationship with Yin Chang
> 
> Political Views:  
>     Republican

There's nothing incriminating in his personal information, and not much on his wall but quiz results and listless status updates. He breathes a sigh of relief and closes the tab. He doesn't want to look at Maeby's profile.

 

* * *

 

"Did you get the script rewrites I forwarded to you?"

Maeby glances up from her laptop. "Yeah," she says dismissively, taking a sip of iced green tea and turning her attention away from the anxious-eyed assistant standing in her office's doorway.

"What'd you think?" he asks.

With a long, dramatic sigh, she looks back up at him, making it clear that he's wasting her time.

"They were fine."

A shrug. "Okay. I had something else to tell you, but I forgot what it was. Guess it must not have been very important."

"Guess not." She doesn't look up from the gossip site, its familiar purple background filling the screen.

He turns and starts to leave, but pivots around before he makes it more than a few feet away from her office. "Oh, I can't believe it, I just remembered. They had to reschedule the last producer sessions for the Bluth project. You need to be across the lot in like, five minutes."

Maeby slams her laptop shut. "Shit!" she hisses, grabbing her notebooks. "Jeff! Do you still have that golf cart?"

 

* * *

 

"Hello?"

"Hey, buddy."

"Oh, hi, Dad."

"How's spring treating you?"

"It's okay, I guess. How's Boston?"

"It's good, it's good. You keeping those grades up?"

"Yeah. I had some trouble with Economics of Financial Intermediaries and Markets, but Lin and I started a study group with a guy from our Theory of Finance class last semester and I think I have a high B right now, so that's going well."

"High B, huh? Well, let's just see if we can get that up to an A by the end of the semester."

"I'll try. What's up? Can I still come home this summer, or should I start trying to find a place in Hanover?"

"Well, that's actually what I called to talk to you about. How would you feel about taking a trip to California this summer?"

"What? Like, to see the family? I thought you said we were never going back there again."

"Yeah, I know, but your Gangee's getting out of prison soon, and you know, we haven't seen those people in a long time."

"Three years."

"Yeah."

 

* * *

 

Mort tosses the day's issue of Variety down on her desk with a satisfied smirk. She can read the headline upside down: _Paul Rudd locked for 'Bananas and Nuts'_. Excited, she grabs the paper and skims the article:

_Paul Rudd will star in "Bananas and Nuts," a Jason Reitman-directed comedy that will begin production in June in Los Angeles._

_Mort Meyers and Mae Fünke will produce. Ron Howard, who put up development money for the project, will be executive producer through Tantamount Pictures._

_No distribution has yet been set for the film._

_In the black comedy scripted by Jay Reiss and based on the true life stories of the formerly-prominent Bluth family, Rudd will play a bighearted man who is forced to reunite with his family and save them from financial ruin. Jeremy Piven and Kate Hudson will play his self-absorbed siblings, while "Adventureland" newcomer Jesse Eisenberg will have a supporting role as his son and Rip Torn will star as the family's patriarch._

Maeby smiles. She has long since ceased to feel bad about selling out her family.

 

* * *

 

"What have I always told you about family?"

George Michael looks at his father quizzically as their plane begins its descent into Los Angeles International Airport.

"That we don't need them?"

"No—"

"Um, they're the most important thing? Lindsay's not my real aunt? Or—um, I don't know how to answer this."

"Family first."

"Right. That one."

"But we're not tied down by these people anymore."

"But you just said—"

"All I'm saying is that we can leave if we want. We have no obligations."

"Okay."

George Michael buckles his seatbelt. He hopes his dad is right.

 

* * *

 

When they get to Tobias and Lindsay's house, George Michael can feel his heart beating in his palms. It's kind of froglike and gross.

Maeby's not there. He doesn't know what he expected. She's a successful film executive who hates her parents. He bets that she moved out the minute she turned 18.

It's a letdown and a relief.

 

* * *

 

It's elevenish when Maeby finally leaves the studio lot. Preproduction, she thinks to herself, is too short a word for such an epic ass-ache. But it'll be worth it when they start shooting next week.

She feels like it's going well. Then again, she thought The Young Guy & The Beach was going well at the time, and it's not like that one won any Oscars. Still. She was younger, she had no idea what she was doing—literally. This time, she has the home field advantage of the film actually being about her family.

Reaching for the stereo dial in her silver BMW convertible, she cranks the BPM channel on satellite radio and sings along as she merges southbound onto the 101, heading toward her Brentwood apartment:

_Our hair is perfect while we're all getting shitwrecked  
It's automatic, honey, but we got no money_

_Daddy I'm so sorry, I'm so s-s-sorry yeah  
We just like to party, like to p-p-party yeah_

She frowns. She never realized how much this song reminds her of her mother.

And she changes the channel.

 

* * *

 

There's a stack of hastily paged-through Varieties on the coffee table in Tobias and Lindsay's living room, and one headline in particular catches George Michael's eye: _Corddry, Dzenia join Bluth biopic_.

He picks up the paper gingerly and stares at the article. Sections of the text jump out at him, seemingly printed larger than the rest— _"final casting announcements in the Ron Howard-helmed comedy"_ ... _"Tantamount executive Mae Fünke, 19, upon whose life the film is based, will be portrayed by 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist' standout Alexis Dzenia"_ ... _"Rob Corddry, of 'The Daily Show,' is set to costar as Bluth relative Tobias Fünke, while 'Saturday Night Live' player Will Forte rounds out the cast as the little-seen Byron 'Buster' Bluth."_

He whirls around and holds up the paper, catching Tobias' attention. "Did you see this?"

"I'm afraid to say I did," Tobias says, "and I have to say, I'm personally hurt that my own daughter didn't offer me an audition. Give me five minutes with Ron Howard and I think we both know he'd be shouting my name for everyone to hear."

George Michael guesses that some things never change.

 

* * *

 

They're filming their first exterior shots today, on location at the Santa Monica Pier where a replica banana stand has been erected and barricades hold the crowd of curious beachgoers back from the cast and crew. Maeby is watching from behind her mirrored sunglasses as the director chats with the actors playing herself and George Michael. They're outfitted in yellow shirts and blue aprons and she's starting to feel really weird, like she's watching her life from the outside, and what if she's actually just a figment of someone's imagination and somewhere some screenwriter is on their Macbook at Coffee Bean, writing this inner monologue of hers? And just when she's starting to really freak herself out, she turns, looks past the barricades, and spots within the crowd the last familiar face she ever expected to see here in Santa Monica on the set of her movie.

"George Michael!" she shouts before she can restrain herself, and both he and the actor portraying him jump to attention. She makes her way across the set as he tries to push through the mass of rubberneckers, but finds himself having trouble. Maeby slips through the gate and the crowd parts to let her through, she assumes, because she's dressed like a fancy film producer.

When they're finally face to face, neither can find the words to say what they need.

 

* * *

 

The ocean roars in the background.

"You look good," George Michael says finally, cringing inside at the sheer lameness of this statement.

Maeby's face is mostly hidden by her glasses, but he thinks he spots a quivery smile growing on her lips.

 

* * *

 

"You look good too," Maeby replies. He does. He's lost weight, gotten a little taller. His shirt is plain blue and vertically striped, no flower prints to be found. He wears the same watch as always. She wonders if he's still uncannily punctual.

 

* * *

 

"How long are you guys out here for?" she asks as they walk slowly down the ocean side of First Street in Santa Monica, and George Michael shrugs.

"Two weeks, according to my dad, but, you know, stuff changes." It's true. At this point he somehow doubts that he'll ever see Massachusetts, let alone Dartmouth, again. Already his father was entangled in a year's worth of family catastrophes, one of which, from what he understood, involved his uncle Gob, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and his attempt to make a _Borat_ -style "magic pranks" video.

Maeby nods. "Why did you guys move to New England anyway? Weren't you in Mexico for a little while?"

"Yeah, that's a long story, but basically, my dad got an offer to head the Midwest division of Sitwell Housing, so we moved to Michigan for a while, but then the company folded in '08 so my dad moved to Boston so he could be closer to where I went to school."

"What's it like?"

"Cold, mostly."

"No, I mean Dartmouth."

George Michael shrugs again. "I'm learning a lot. And I have a girlfriend there, so..."

"Really." Maeby doesn't look at him. "What's her name?"

"Um, Yin. Yin Chang."

"She sounds smart."

"Yeah."

They don't speak for a while, and Maeby turns to face the beach, leaning on the wall next to a statue of what kind of looks like a penis in glare of the late afternoon sun but, George Michael realizes, is actually a saint of some kind.

 

* * *

 

"It was weird," Maeby finally says, "when you guys just left."

She watches George Michael out of the corner of her eye, as he shifts uneasily. "I didn't have any choice," he replies. "You know how my dad is."

A long pause. "I know," she says finally.

 

* * *

 

That night they have dinner at the Spanish Kitchen, a favorite restaurant of Maeby's where the maitre d' knows her name and George Michael orders a papaya salad. At one point during the meal, Topher Grace and his date pass by and greet her warmly.

 

* * *

 

When George Michael tells her that they're probably going to be staying in California for the rest of the summer while his dad deals with the technicalities of Gangee's parole and Uncle Buster's hand transplant, Maeby refuses to celebrate. She says "Oh, that's awesome," and that's it, she has to hang up the phone because they're about to start shooting a scene between fake-Lindsay and fake-Michael, okay, I'll call you tonight.

He's still got a girlfriend, she reminds herself. It's not even about the family thing, because to be honest, they don't feel related. They're _not_ related. But still, girlfriend. Smart Asian Girlfriend who got into an Ivy League school. Probably a nerd who speaks six languages and enjoys computer programming and cloning mice in her free time or something.

 

* * *

 

George Michael finds it weird to be staying at Tobias and Lindsay's house all summer. There isn't a ton of extra room—it's just a little two-bedroom in Studio City that Tobias bought with the money he made from a supporting role in the summer before last's surprise hit comedy, a project that was no bigger a surprise hit than to Lindsay, and was probably the sole reason they were still together—but it had a tiny guest house in the backyard, so George Michael stays in the main house and Michael commandeers the guest bungalow as a makeshift office of sorts.

What's weird is that he's staying in Maeby's old bedroom, the one she had before moving out and cutting off most ties with her family. He tries not to snoop around at first, but there are still clothes in the closet and various papers in the desk drawers.

One night he finds himself sleepless again—his internal clock has really gone haywire lately—and sits down on the floor with the contents of one of the chests of drawers, hoping they'll be mundane enough to lull him to sleep. Instead, what he finds between the Kitson receipts and gum wrappers makes his stomach feel like it's dropped somewhere into the vicinity of his ankles.

A crumpled piece of notebook paper. A drawing of a freckled girl with scribbled, curly hair. The heading "If you weren't my cousin..."

And there are more.

She must have found them in the bedroom of the model house. Probably sometime after he and his father left for Cabo, but maybe before. He doesn't know.

But she kept them.

 

* * *

 

Maeby is on the Culver City soundstage where they're shooting some interiors today, eating a Waldorf salad and reading the dailies online. But when she instinctively bops over to Facebook, she drops her fork, a piece of apple still impaled on its tines.

> George Michael Bluth is now single **♥**  
>  16 hours ago · Comment · Like

Slowly, a grin growing on her face, she clicks "Like."


End file.
